


Cats paw

by xantissa



Category: Loveless
Genre: F/M, Gen, Incest, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-13
Updated: 2012-07-13
Packaged: 2017-11-09 21:54:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 5,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/458868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xantissa/pseuds/xantissa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seimei makes a deal with Ritsuka. He would leave Soubi, Kio and everyone else alone if Ritsuka gave him 4 years of his life during which he would not contact any of his friends.<br/>Ritsuka, still trying to save his brother, agrees and leaves with him. He asked Soubi to wait for him. He had no idea what the consequences would be.</p><p>A series of snapshots, fic bits and longer fics.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The deal

PG  
Ritsuka, Seimei  
Summary: “How much is Soubi’s life worth for you, Ritsuka? And that Kio, what would you give to save him? Would you give me four years of your life for them?”

 

"What do you have for me today?” Seimei’s voice was low, filled with a kind of wicked amusement that sent shivers down Ritsuka’s spine every single time.

It’s been over two years since he left Tokyo with Seimei in his last attempt to save everybody. To protect Kio, Soubi and even his brother. Ritsuka believed, with all his heart, that he could save him too, could bring him back home.

“How much is Soubi’s life worth for you Ritsuka? And that Kio, what would you give to save him? Would you give me four years of your life for them?”

He watched his brother everyday. Saw in him everything that Kio and others had spoke of. He saw the cruelty, the wickedness, darkness with an edge of madness to it. He also saw gentleness and love, overindulgence towards him.

This time, however, he wasn’t a small kid. He could no longer blindly accept whatever Seimei told him.

He looked at his brother; he used to be larger than life, in Ritsuka’s eye. This huge, warm, safe presence that could soothe any pain.

But no longer. 

These days, whenever he closed his eyes in search of comfort, it wasn’t Seimei’s face he saw. It wasn’t his arms he felt around himself. 

Coming with Seimei, his heart was filled with love and anxiety, a desperate hope to save his brother, to see, once again, the gentle being that soothed his cuts and bruises away.

“Three possible fighters,” Answered the older man, taking sheets of photographs from his briefcase “Two of them are quite talented and their bond with their Sacrifices is extremely strong. Both are Chinese and never properly trained. The third one is a woman. Trained in Hong Kong by the best teachers, she is said to be very strong because of her exceptional defensive skill. While her attacks are strong but nothing extraordinary, it’s her ability to resist spells cast at her that makes her so valuable.” The man pointed to the last picture.

“Oh?” Seimei seemed interested; he looked at the pictures like a collector acquiring another piece for his collection. Ritsuka doubted he even saw humans in them anymore. “Strong fighters have strong bonds.” Seimei remarked.

“True. But her Sacrifice died. Their opponent broke the rules and had a sniper waiting in hiding. Her Master was shot in the back. He ordered her to live, that’s why she is currently nameless and unbounded.”

Ritsuka loved Seimei. It was that simple. Nothing anyone could say could change that fact. Two years ago he believed that he would love Seimei always.

He never realized that the only person capable of killing that love was Seimei himself.

Bit by bit, day by day, that love died inside Ritsuka making him question his decision.

He left his mother, his friends… Soubi… to save someone who didn’t even want to be saved.

Thinking about his fighter made his chest constrict, pain racing through his whole body. He forced Soubi to swear, to obey the orders given no matter what, but he wasn’t sure if he would.

He told Soubi to wait, told him that in four years he would come back, but would the Fighter survive without him?

He looked at the last picture laying on the gleaming black table. The woman would have been pretty, beautiful even if not for the too skinny body and eyes that were as dead as her Sacrifice. 

“Her name is Liu Mey.” Continued the man, an information broker Ritsuka saw before and despised with vengeance. “I’ll sell her for four thousand.”

Ritsuka only half listened to the conversation, staring at the picture. Her eyes reminded him of someone else who had the same haunted look behind his smile. The same pain and that overwhelming desire to die. Both of them could not die, however.

In the time spent with Seimei, he learned a lot about Fighters and Sacrifices, he learned about the power of orders, the words and spells that even Seimei used even though he wasn’t a Fighter. He often wondered how much pain Soubi could avoid if he had known all those things two years ago. 

He could not look away from the picture, in his mind the frail woman became one with another well known figure. 

“Once I retrain her, she could become a valuable tool.” Mused Seimei aloud. 

Ritsuka jerked out of his thoughts at those words.

Retrain.

Like he did to Soubi.

Ritsuka clenched his fists.

Soubi, whose eyes were never free of pain and suffering, who could not feel pleasure without pain, who equaled love with pain, whose back was covered in so many scars he could barely feel anything there anymore. He remembered those beautiful hands touching him with a gentleness that was never directed at Soubi himself. 

No. Never again.

“Let me go to her.” Asked the younger boy.

It was a risk, Seimei kept a tight rein on his movements. But his brother also insisted on finding him another Fighter, to erase Soubi from his mind. 

Two more years. 

Two more years, and the deal would end. 

In two years, he will make his final decision and never again look back.

 

tbc


	2. Atonement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seimei taught him the power of orders to corrupt him, to dirty him. But Ritsuka was strong; he had to be strong, had to survive. And in doing so, he could maybe save a life along the way...

The last rays of sun slithered over the bed, skittering like crickets over her hand. She could feel the warmth being slowly replaced by chill, but she couldn’t find the strength to move. The sheets she was lying on were old and dirty, and the apartment eerily quiet.

She should probably eat but she couldn’t be bothered to get up.

She should probably get a shower, but it all just seemed too surreal to her.

Her vision blurred, eyes kept open too long to the point of pain, but even that didn’t matter.

He told her to live, but how could she, when there was no longer a reason to?

She wanted to die so badly, to end this misery.

“Live. That’s my last order Mey. Live.”

She closed her eyes. It would have been so much kinder to just let her die with him.

“You should eat something.” The voice was sweet and gentle. She forgot about the boy. He didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore.

The boy, Ritsuka, sighed again. She wished he would just go.

She heard him coming closer and sitting on the bed beside her. His hand was warm and dry as it petted her dirty hair.

“I won’t leave you alone.” He said in the same gentle voice, but this time there was power behind his words. Almost a spell, a warning.

So, he was a Sacrifice, a powerful one, too. 

Briefly, she wondered if it was a threat.

* * *

Ritsuka stared at the unresponsive Fighter. He came here every day for a week already, trying to find a way to drag the woman from her shell. 

It hurt to watch her, her thin body so fragile on the huge bed, her ash blond hair painfully familiar.

He could force her into obedience. To his horror, the first thing that Seimei forced him to learn were the restriction spells. It seemed that the Aoyagi boys had a unique talent for them... but he would not do that. No matter what, he would not resort to violence and using an offensive spell was violence.

He remembered what Kio told him once that after Seimei’s death, Soubi was like a zombie, a living corpse. He didn’t understand then. Now, looking at the pitiful husk of a woman in front of him, he understood all to well.

He kneeled in front of the bed, shifting so that he could look into the half open, flat eyes. They were grey. Soubi had blue...

“Listen to me. I will not leave here without you.” He gathered his strength and put power into his words, like Seimei showed him before. “You **will** obey me.”

She flinched, the command penetrating deep into her very core, where the roots of her training began. It wasn’t a spell, not yet. But it could be, and she finally understood it.

“Why?” She asked finally, her eyes focusing on him for a moment.

Ritsuka held her gaze and answered truthfully.

“Before... I failed someone. Because I was afraid, because I was weak, because I didn’t know things. Let this be my atonement.” He put the palm of his hand on her cheek, feeling how cold and clammy her skin was. “Come with me, and the only thing you will have to do will be to listen to my orders. Let me control you. Let me take your pain away; let me bear the burden of your responsibility. Let me help you fulfill that last order...”

He could feel the wetness under his hand. He broke through, finally.

If he only knew all that he knew now, two years ago... if only...

“Let’s make a deal…” She whispered against the skin of his palm, and he smiled gently. Seimei taught him the power of orders to corrupt him, to dirty him. But Ritsuka was strong, he had to be strong, had to survive. And in doing so, he could maybe save a life along the way... 

tbc


	3. Chains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was fifteen now. He felt more lonely and helpless than ever before.

The apartment was big and lavish, situated on the fifteenth floor of one of the many Hong Kong high risers. Ritsuka stood in front of the glass wall, staring at the myriad of lights in the ever alive city below.

He felt like a prisoner, a prisoner of his own promise.

Torn between the longing and love, loneliness and a dying hope, Ritsuka finally understood just how Soubi must have felt with all those conflicting orders pulling him in different directions.

Mey sat on the floor nearby, back to the glass, smoking another cigarette, her ash blond hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. She was still much too thin and her eyes were flat and vacant most of the time, but she ate and took care of herself at least.

Ritsuka let her smoke without comment, her mannerism reminding him of Soubi. It seemed that his every other thought was of the blond Fighter.

Was he still waiting?

Ritsuka glanced at his current Fighter.

Was Soubi even alive?

He concentrated on the bonds he formed. There was the relatively new, thin and so very fragile connection to Mey. Just enough to call her when needed. It was all he could offer and it was all the older woman would accept.

But there was another bond. Imaginary chains stretching from him into nothingness. He hoped, prayed, they connected him to Soubi.

After Seimei taught him to form bonds at will, Ritsuka started training himself at night, trying to create a bond with the absent Fighter. It was a hard and painful task. He meditated for hours on end, searching for something that would connect him to Soubi.

His mind kept coming back to the chains that restrained him during spell battle. They were strong, almost unbreakable and easiest to imagine.

So, he kept imagining them. Their weight, their taste, the sound the links make as they slid against each other. By now the image was engraved deep into his mind. However, he never knew if that connection ever reached Soubi.

“No contact Ritsuka. Not with Mother, not with your friends, not with Soubi. No calls, no letters. Nothing. Those are my rules.”

He was fifteen now. He felt more lonely and helpless than ever before.

He put his hand on the cold glass and closed his eyes.

“Soubi.” He whispered, imagining the heavy chain curling around him, clinking softly. These days, it was his only comfort.

He wondered if by trying to save one life he didn’t destroy another?

tbc


	4. Reality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do you love me, Ritsuka?

“Do you love me, Ritsuka?”

His brother often asked this question, watching his face with warm, dark eyes, looking just like the brother Ritsuka remembered from before.

Ritsuka stared at the steaming plate before him, the food plentiful and delicious as always, and his stomach twisted.

He remembered watching, just hours before, Seimei turning his back on Nisei, his own Fighter, one that shared his name. Turning away and leaving Nisei to fight alone, to take the damage alone. Just standing there and watching with cold, cruel eyes. 

“Do you love me, Ritsuka?” Seimei asked again, sitting opposite him, his hands hovering gracefully over the steak he was in the process of cutting.

Ritsuka stared at the brown stains on the white plate and thought about the dark haired Fighter bandaging his wounds in the next room. Dry blood had the same brownish-red color.

He jerked away from the table, barely reaching the bathroom before loosing what little he managed to eat.

Quiet footsteps followed him and, soon, he felt warm, dry hand keeping his hair away from his face as he retched, and the other stroking his back in slow circles.

“Didn’t you want it this way, Ritsuka? Didn’t you want to see?” His brother asked not unkindly. “Do you still love me, Ritsuka?”

“My rules then. You don’t lie to me, you don’t hide anything from me, and you set Soubi free. You will never again give him any order.”

tbc


	5. Betrayal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ritsuka/Seimei

Ritsuka drifted somewhere in a place between sleep and wakefulness. Seimei sat on the edge of his bed and stroked the younger boy’s head in smooth, slow strokes, his palm sliding over the silky hair and the delicate fur of the kitty ears.

It felt good, relaxing, almost hypnotizing Ritsuka into total bonelessness. Cocooned in the warm comforter, fresh smelling sheets and his brother’s warmth, he could almost believe he was home.

Seimei came to his bedroom almost nightly, sitting with him, petting him, until he fell asleep. It was almost like before, Ritsuka was happy during those nights, his heart filled with hope and love for his brother.

He felt warm, dry lips on his own and the gentle hand now firmly holding his chin in place.

Seimei kissed him.

The kiss tasted like betrayal.

tbc


	6. Realisation and Cruelty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ritsuka, OFC  
> Summary: Mey stared at the ceiling for a while longer, trying to understand what was it that she felt. Anger or pity? Because right now, Ritsuka deserved both.

She wasn’t asleep when Ritsuka crept into her room. Dressed in the ridiculously oversized tee-shirt and soft cotton pants he usually wore to sleep, the teenager slowly crept onto the small bed and wormed his way under the covers.

He hesitated a moment and then pressed close, burying his face in her shoulder, his arms sneaking around her waist. He was tense, minute tremors wrecking his body.

He was already taller than her, the rigorous training adding muscles where there used to be only skin and bones. If he wanted, he could envelop her completely in his arms. Yet, he felt like a child right then. Thin, fragile and upset.

She could feel his eyelashes brushing her skin as he pressed his face into her neck.

“Tomorrow, you’ll move into my room.”

Briefly, she wondered what his brother had done this time to warrant such a reaction?

“Understood.” After all, she promised to follow his orders. She was a Fighter; he was a Sacrifice. There was nothing more, nothing less to it.

There were no more words and eventually they fell asleep, curled around themselves like a pair of homeless kittens.

* * *

She woke up to the feeling of Ritsuka’s face pressed to her chest and his uneven breathing. His arousal was pressing into her hip. But the teenager was obviously still asleep.

She shifted and he woke up, his body tensing in instant embarrassment. Mey ran her hand though the dark, silky hair, pressing at the kitty ears and watching them spring back automatically. 

“Do you want to?” She asked quietly, her hand still touching the silky ears.

Obviously, her master was at the age where those instincts should kick in full force. She lost her ears to her Sacrifice when she was fifteen too.

The ears swirled adorably and then lowered sadly.

“I promised my ears to someone already.” Ritsuka whispered, his face still pressed into her chest.

She contemplated the dejected ears in front of her for a long while.

“Your Fighter?”

The boy nodded. 

She stared at the ceiling, noticing the lack of any cracks and imperfections. Only the best for Ritsuka.

“The one you abandoned?”

Ritsuka tensed but stayed quiet. That was an answer enough.

"You know, half meant kindness can be the worst kind of cruelty.”

She watched Ritsuka get out of the bed with angry, sharp motions and then stomp towards the bathroom. The sound of slamming doors was overly loud in the room.

Mey stared at the ceiling for a while longer, trying to understand what was it that she felt. Anger or pity? Because right now, Ritsuka deserved both.

tbc


	7. Ghost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soubi, Kio  
> Summary: The evening is warm and quiet and the only thing he hears as he puts his forehead on the table and cries silently is the soulless scratch of charcoal on paper.

It’s like living with a ghost, Kio thinks as he watches the silent figure sitting on the floor in the farthest corner of the room. Long ash blond hair falling in a tangled, unkempt mess over a too pale, too thin face.

Kio can only watch as Soubi draws endless butterflies of black charcoal and regret on pages upon pages of white sketchbooks that Kio took to buying in bulk these days.

It’s been months already, weeks after weeks of tears and anger, of screaming, pleading and crying for Soubi to wake up, to speak.

Soubi hasn’t spoken a word in six months.

He only sits and draws the cursed butterflies, eats when Kio takes the sketchbooks and charcoal away and pushes bowls and spoons into the stained hands. There’s no grace left in the broken man. No fire, not a single spark of life. It’s even worse than when Seimei died. 

Kio watches and prays, prays to all the damn gods he can think of that Ritsuka keeps his word. That the brat comes back because, as much as it pains him, he can not help Soubi. 

Sometimes, when the days are too long, when he has to pull Soubi into the bathroom one more time, strip him and wash his scarred body and can no longer see how beautiful the man once was, Kio thinks about taking Soubi to the hospital. At first, such a thought wouldn’t even cross his mind. It was Sou-chan after all. His friend, his ever lasting crush. But months after months of staring at the apathetic, silent husk of man drawing broken butterflies on the floor of Kio’s room, made him tired.

So, so tired.

He looks at the half eaten bowl of soup and pushes it away. The heavy miasma of hopelessness that seemed to always linger in this room stifled the last of his hunger.

The evening is warm and quiet and the only thing he hears as he puts his forehead on the table and cries silently is the soulless scratch of charcoal on paper.

tbc


	8. Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kio   
> Summary: He is scared, hurt and so very much alone even though he knows that barely few feet away from him is Soubi either sleeping or drawing the damned butterflies with that dead, far away look in his eyes.

His hands shake so badly when he tries to open the door that it takes him three tries to shove the key into the lock. His eyes are blurry and he wipes at them with the torn sleeve of his shirt, not really surprised to find it bloody afterwards. He wishes he could knock, call, have somebody open the damn door for him before his legs give way completely, but he knows it’s no use. After a year of living with the ghost of his friend, he learned not to expect anything from him at all.

He manages to open the door and stumbles inside, his legs finally giving in. He falls on hands and knees just inside the dark and eerily quiet apartment. No bright lights or hot meal for him. He wants to laugh, his mind numb and body more than a little shaky but a jagged sob comes forth instead. He bleeds in so many places, the whole left side of his face swelling so badly it’s a chore to keep his eye open, his ribs send sharp pangs of pain every time he breathes and... his mind shies away from that. Denial, he thinks, after all, is one the self preservation instincts.

He curls on the floor, in wet and bloody clothes, and whimpers through dry sobs and sore throat. They wanted to kill him; they would have killed him if it wasn’t for that car. A fucking car alarm saved his life.

He knows, knows they were going to kill him. He saw it in their eyes, felt it in every blow. He thought he knew cruelty, saw coldness in Soubi’s scars. But he never saw the same blind rage, unfounded hatred and cruelty as he saw in them... 

They wanted to kill him, and even though he is away now, he doesn’t feel safe. There was nothing he could do against them, nothing to stop them but beg... and that didn’t help at all. 

He is scared, hurt and so very much alone even though he knows that barely few feet away from him is Soubi either sleeping or drawing the damned butterflies with that dead, far away look in his eyes. 

So close, yet so very far away.

His whole body throbs with pain, his heart beats erratic staccato of fear, and Kio curls into a tighter ball, crying quietly and whimpering because he is alone and afraid, so very afraid.

They know him, they know where he lives, they can come back and there’s no one to take care of him, no one to protect him.

His head hurts, his body throbs with a myriad of bruises and cuts and some small part of him knows he should get up, call an ambulance but he doesn’t. He just curls tighter on himself and weeps, calling for a memory of a man that no longer exists.

When the darkness comes to him finally, it does not offer relief.

tbc


	9. Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kio, Soubi  
> Summary: The room is painted in golds and reds, the sunset sneaking in through the open blinds. It looks warm and beautiful but all Kio can feel is unexplainable dread.

He wakes up clean and tucked into bed, his ribs taped and both hands bandaged tightly. His mind is sleep-heavy and it takes time for Kio to remember that he did not clean himself. The last thing he remembers is passing out on the floor.

The sheets aren’t really very clean, cheap and have green fish printed on them but they are his and he just doesn’t understand. He closes his eye, the only one not swollen shut, and thinks.

He thinks he can remember harsh, too thin hands pulling at him at one time and then something bitter on his tongue followed by cold water. Not much more. It actually takes time for his numbed brain to realize the obvious truth.

His eye snaps open and he struggles to sit up despite the protesting ribs and more than one injury.

“Sou-chan!” He croaks, surprised at the rough quality of his voice. It sounds as if he hasn’t used it in weeks.

The room is painted in golds and reds, the sunset sneaking in through the open blinds. It looks warm and beautiful but all Kio can feel is unexplainable dread.

“Sou-chan!” He calls, this time stronger.

He hears his own voice echo back at him in the empty apartment. 

It’s silent and still and he knows, without getting up that it’s empty.

“Soubi.” He calls softly again, into the sheets still smelling like his friend

Don’t leave me, he thinks, please.

But there’s no one to listen to his pleas any more. Sometimes, Kio thinks that there never was. 

tbc


	10. Relief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kio was never the one Soubi waited for, after all.

Kio walks back to his apartment while it’s still light. He doesn’t like to admit it, even to himself, but he’s now afraid of going though the city streets alone at night.

The bruises just started to fade, turning yellowish-blue and his ribs almost stopped hurting. Two weeks and his body is already erasing the marks from his body, but the ones in his head are still fresh.

He still jumps at shadows, he feels uncomfortable when tall men are around him, his heart still freezes every time he opens his door, waiting, hoping to see a silent figure drawing butterflies on his living room floor. 

The sun is warm on the back of his neck and the breeze ruffles his hair gently. He tries to smile, but the bruising on his face still doesn’t really allow it, and neither does his heart.

The moment he opens his door, however, he knows something is different. The silence is still there, heavy and oppressing but no longer empty.

“Sou-chan?” He calls, just like he did for the last year.

No one answers him, but it’s also something he got used to during the last twelve months. 

He searches the kitchen and bathroom first then the bedroom, half convincing himself it was just him imagination when he sees him.

Dressed in faded jeans and black long sleeved shirt, Kio vaguely recognizes this person as his own Soubi. He lays in the large bed on his side, his too thin arms curled towards his chest in a childlike manner. His eyes are closed, glasses nowhere in sight and he looks so young to Kio. So young and thin and fragile, it breaks Kio’s heart all over again.

His own body may be broken, his spirit shaken, but the only thing that could break Kio’s heart is this husk of a man lying on his bed, sleeping as if he wasn’t gone for two damn weeks without a word.

There are some cuts on Soubi’s hands, his lip is split and his hair is an absolute, filthy mess, but Kio doesn’t think he saw anything more beautiful in his life. He sags to his knees, arms on the bed beside the sleeping man and cries tears of relief. 

Soubi was back. Maybe not whole, not safe but alive and it was all Kio needed.

He stays like this for a while, just crying himself empty, waiting for comfort that never comes. Eventually, he has to put himself together, because there’s simply no one else left to depend on, not that Soubi was ever the dependable one. 

He wants to shake the other man awake and scream at him, yell until he is blue in the face for leaving him like that, hurt and frantic, wondering if Soubi was even alive anymore? But he learned that no matter how much he screamed, how much he pleaded and begged, threatened and cajoled, Soubi would not respond to him. 

Kio was never the one Soubi waited for, after all.

He gets up to make something to eat because he knows Soubi hasn’t eaten much, if anything, the whole time he was gone. Kio starts making a light soup, coming back to check on Soubi every few minutes because he just has to make sure the man is still there, still asleep on his bed, not just a figment of his imagination.

Kio hates the silence; it seems that along with Soubi, he brought the ever oppressive silence to his home as well. He flicks the old TV on, eager for some noise. He only listens with half an ear to the games show and then the news as he prepares the food. It takes twice as long because he keeps coming back to the sleeping man, just looking, making sure.

It’s the name that catches his attention. He stills, every single muscle in his body freezes as his eyes snap to the TV.

“...Yasuo Matsueda, Tatsumi Shisei and a third, as of yet unidentified, young man have been admitted to the hospital yesterday night with extreme injuries. All three of them are now fighting for their lives on the ICU under the protection of police. It’s been already concluded that the massive injuries sustained by the three young men were caused by someone rather than an accident. The police are looking into the connection between those three men and searching for the perpetrator.”

Kio doesn’t even notice that the spoon he was holding falls to the floor with loud clatter. The tomato sauce splatters on the floor like blood. Like his blood two weeks ago after he crawled home half conscious and scared out of his mind.

“The police are looking into the connection between those three men…”

He knows the connection, he is the connection. He remembers those names, those faces. He will never forget them. He shivers and bile rises in his throat.

“You fucking, faggot. I’ll teach you a lesson...” The words, memories, echo in his brain with painful clarity.

He takes a step back and then another, until he’s back in the bedroom.

Soubi’s eyes are open and flat, staring at the wall with a kind of hardness Kio doesn’t remember ever seeing.

He doesn’t have to ask. He knows it already, sees it in the bruises on Soubi’s knuckles in the quietly menacing way he just stares at the wall without acknowledging Kio.

Kio slowly sinks to his knees, too stunned, too shocked to utter a sound.

He should have found it odd that those upperclassmen weren’t at the University any more, that he hasn’t met one of them after he came back to the classes, but he was just so damn grateful not see them...

“Soubi.” He moans from under his hands, eyes closed.

He hears a soft rustle and then quiet footsteps as Soubi approaches him. He can not look up, still unable to comprehend, to believe in what he already knows is the truth. 

He watches the bare feet approach and then stop in front of him. There’s a faint clinking sound as something metal hits the floor and then Soubi sidesteps him. After a while he can hear the now sickeningly familiar scratch of charcoal on paper.

He looks for the objects that Soubi dropped.

Earrings. Three silver studs with a symbol of their university baseball team. He remembers them all too well, gleaming in the lamplight as Yasuo and Tastsumi held him while...

There’s still blood on them.

tbc


	11. Enemy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> OC, Seimei, Ritsuka

Looking into Seimei’s eyes was like looking into a snake’s eyes. They were dark and still, but there was a promise of movement, a threat she was all too aware of.

They stood silent and still in the doorway to Ritsuka’s bedroom, both aware of the small sighs and shifts the boy made in his sleep.

Mey stood in Seimei’s way, baring his path towards the boy she now called Master. She knew why the boy ordered her to move in, and now Seimei did too.

She noticed the way the young man shifted, a parody of a gentle smile curving his lips in a mockery of kindness.

“You are in my way. Move.” He said, voice low and powerful.

“Your words have no power, they fall on deaf ears.” Mey said almost immediately, feeling the rush of his words along her skin. It was always so odd to meet a Sacrifice capable of using the words.

The smile never left his lips, but Seimei’s eyes became harder, obviously threatening.

“You are indeed very fast.” He praised, his words like poison.

“It seems you have used up all your welcome here.” Mey pressed, unwilling to be pushed into defense.

Seimei’s eyes cut to the sleeping boy behind her, and then back to Mey. There was no longer a smile on his face.

“Goodnight.” Said the young man and she nodded, watching him leave quietly.

There would be hell to pay for this interference in Seimei’s business, she knew.

Things have changed. Ritsuka had clearly cut one of his connections to his brother, and while Seimei wouldn’t outright take revenge on his little brother, he had no such qualms about her.

It seemed she had just made an enemy.


End file.
